SREBRENICA, July 11, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – As children in white stood among rows of coffins, survivors commemorated Monday, July 11, the 10th anniversary of Srebrenica massacre, while the West regretted its failure to prevent Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.

The white mourning robes contrasted with the green coverings of the 610 coffins being interred at Srebrenica, a town whose name has become synonymous with horror, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Prayers rang out from loudspeakers as thousands made their way to the memorial.

Mourners looked at the wooden markers for the grave of their fathers, husbands or sons.

At least 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in Srebrenica when Bosnian Serb forces and irregular Serbian police units backed by Belgrade overran the town, which was supposed to be a UN-protected "safe area".

The massacre, in the final months of a 43-month war that claimed 200,000 lives, aimed to ensure there were no Muslims to fight back or reclaim Serb-occupied land or homes in the future.

Some 50,000 people from across the country as well as numerous international dignitaries gathered at the memorial cemetery in Potocari, just outside the eastern Bosnian town.

More than 1,300 victims have been buried at the memorial cemetery, built in 2003.

World dignitaries included British Foreign Minister Jack Straw, Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, the head of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Theodor Meron, and former US Balkans envoy Richard Holbrooke.

Messages from US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who thanked Bosnians for their support after last week's bombings in London, were read to the crowd.

Serbian President Boris Tadic, who has condemned the massacre as a "monstrous crime," led a small delegation from Belgrade despite warnings from some Bosnian Muslims that he would not be welcome.

Tadic announced his intention to attend the commemorations after a gruesome video showing a Serbian paramilitary unit killing handcuffed Srebrenica civilians was broadcast on Serbian television.

The video shocked many Serbs who were still denying the massacre ever took place.

Bosnian Mufti Mustafa Ceric stands by remains of Muslims found in a new mass grave in Budak. (Reuters)

One of the mourners, Beguna Mujic, broke down in tears as she inspected the neatly dug graves where her son and two brothers were buried.

"Horrible, horrible. I'm reliving the horrors again," she told AFP, adding that she was still searching for the remains of her two other sons.

"I still remember the day when we parted. We hugged and kissed in front of the house and they left," said Hajra Ademovic, burying two sons.

Ademovic's three sons, three grandsons and three brothers were among thousands killed by Serb forces while trying to escape through the forest to a territory controlled by the Muslim-led Bosnian government.

Ademovic, who was among thousands of civilians who fled to the Dutch base in Potocari hoping to get UN protection, has so far found only the bodies of her two sons and a grandchild.

"What a horrible world we live in when the only wish a mother can have for her child is to see him buried," said Bektic Ajsa.

Ajsa, who buried her husband on Monday, is still searching for the body of her son.

Hajrija Mujic, 36, came to bury her father-in-law. Her husband's remains were identified but too late for burial on Monday.

"Our pain continues, every year we come to bury someone else," weeping Mujic told Reuters. "I am sick of all this."

Even as the ceremony was taking place, more remains were being exhumed from another mass grave discovered nearby last week in the village of Budak and thought to contain at least another 100 unidentified victims.

Forty-two mass graves have already been exhumed by UN and Bosnian teams.

Experts estimate there may be another 22 locations in the area around Srebrenica, according to Reuters.

So far, 2,070 victims have been identified. More than 7,000 body bags with full or partial remains await identification through DNA tests.

Marchers pray at the Budak mass grave. (Reuters)

A number of international officials regretted the West's failure to prevent the genocide, reported Reuters.

"Srebrenica was the failure of NATO, of the West, of peacekeeping and of the United Nations," said former US Balkans envoy Richard Holbrooke.

"It was the tragedy that should never be allowed to happen again," he stressed.

Holbrooke also criticized failure to arrest the masterminds of the slaughter and bring them to justice.

Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic and his political master Radovan Karadzic, both indicted for genocide for the atrocity, remain at large.

"The failure to arrest them is a great failure which we all regret. They must be caught," said Holbrooke, who led the marathon negotiations in Dayton, Ohio, in 1995 that ended Bosnia's war.

The UN war crimes tribunal in the Hague has charged 19 people in connection with the massacre. Six have been sentenced and 10 are being tried or are awaiting trial.

Holbrooke's criticism of the world's failure to prevent the genocide was echoed by Straw.

"It is to the shame of the international community that this evil took place under our noses and we did nothing like enough," he told the gathering.

"I bitterly regret this and I am deeply sorry for it."

A message from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan repeated that Srebrenica would haunt the world body forever.

"The victims had put their trust in international protection. But we, the international community, let them down," said a message from EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

"This was a colossal, collective and shameful failure."

Two families of massacre victims will sue the Dutch government for failing to offer sufficient protection to their relatives, according to AFP.

"They had the right to be protected because they were employed by the battalion of the Dutch UN peacekeepers," lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld said on the public NOS channel.

Some 400 Dutch peacekeepers were assigned by the UN to protect the local population of Srebrenica.

The family of Rizo Mustafic, an electrician employed by the Dutch force, is one of those taking legal action for damages.

Husan Nuhanovic, a translator for the Dutch battalion, is the second person to take legal action against the government.

Members of his family were not evacuated with the Dutch troops and were subsequently killed.